Bert Jansch

It was a folk club.

And that's where I saw people like Bert Jansch and Davy Graham and that, and they, and, and then people ...

It was, uh, like an open mic night.

It's, uh, and that would be open till 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, and then we'd get the milk train back to Dartford, because obviously you couldn't get a train in the night, and so we'd come out on the train.

The Irish lad I spied

The late, great Bert Jansch there and his classic recording of Blackwaterside.

Let's say, sadly, 15 many years gone from us.

Dear pal.

The Irish that I spied

From that 1966 album, Jack Orion, Bert Jansch, Blackwater Side.

The Pine Valley Cosmonauts, their version of Gallows Pole.

We heard some very late music from The Yardbirds, from a collection called Yardbirds '68.

it was like Beatle- was it- it was- It was the mods and the rockers- Mod, right ... and The Beatles and The Stones.

Right, right [laughs] And it was also John Renbourn and, and, uh, Bert Jansch.

Yeah.

And, um...

He was the lead vocalist and co-founder for the Swiss hard rock band Gothard.

Bert Jansch passed away in 2011 at the age of 67 from cancer.

He was a Scottish folk guitarist, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the progressive folk group Pentangle.

Leonard Delaney passed away in 2014 at the age of 71 from Alzheimer's disease.

So I'd always be imagining drums, or always be imagining what the, the bass would do, and, and working with a band and the, the, the process that that, you know, that, that, that is, and presenting things as a band.

And I'd never really conceived of the idea of doing anything solo because I think in my imagination, if I was to look at people like, you know, solo artists that I really looked up to, like, say, Bert Jansch or someone like Richard, uh, Thompson, or people like that, I just thought, "Well, I don't have the, I don't have the guitar chops to play on my own." I mean, I've got guitar chops, but they're in a, in a band context.

I don't really have the guitar chops to play on my own.

I'm not a great acoustic guitar player, and I'm, I'm not sure whether I'm-- my voice can carry this kind of thing.

Very fascinating.

Uh, one of Neil's big influences, of course, is Bert Jansch, who's another favorite of yours.

Uh, I understand you, you ended up, you and Bernard Butler both working on a record with him, right? Crimson Moon.

What was it like? I mean, had you...

So his first two albums really, um, they were very folky with kind of appropriate overdubs, although some people do struggle with some of the overdubs.

Uh, uh, they're a little over the top, but I think Bert Jansch went through a similar thing with some of his, um, recordings as well, if you know who Bert Jansch is.

Um, and uh, the second album, well, was really fully instrumented.

Bryter Layter has a much happier vibe on it and which kind of belies the mood, um, of the songs and of Nick Drake generally as someone who did suffer from bouts of depression.

All of that was really just to gain the experience to be able to kind of, you know, aim for the, the studio career.

Um, but I also, parallel with that, just had this great love for finger style guitar, specifically like John Renbourn, Bert Jansch out of the, the English folk baroque, but also Stephen Grossman ragtime stuff.

I just loved all of that.

That plus the, the experience of playing on the jazz side of the spectrum really kind of led me to a point where when I was in college, I was Not only playing with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, I was also, like, s- playing, playing renaissance lute.